Everyone says that, to breathe. Once I started doing that I calmed down a little bit. I started getting back in the zone." — Drake Britton

BOSTON — The trial period is presumably brief.

The Red Sox have a short amount of time before the non-waiver trade deadline to figure out if the likes of Drake Britton and Brandon Workman and the other lesser-known quantities, the Jose De La Torre's and Pedro Beato's, are answers in the bullpen.

Britton's major-league debut came Saturday night in the ninth inning of a 5-2 Red Sox loss, and the results were positive in a game the Sox trailed, but not by much. He got three outs on nine pitches, the final out coming on catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia's caught stealing of Brett Gardner at second base.

"I was a little bit nervous, my heart rate was up," said the 24-year-old Britton, a left-hander who pitched just one game at Triple-A Pawtucket before being promoted to the majors. "Just tried to do my best to stay calm."

Eight of the pitches Britton threw were fastballs. The hardest he threw was 95 mph, and he sat at 94 mph.

Britton entered in a bind, with Boston up 4-2. Sox reliever Pedro Beato hit Luis Cruz with a pitch to start the inning and a rare Dustin Pedroia fielding error, with Brett Gardner at the plate, put runners on first and second. Ichiro Suzuki and Robinson Cano — both lefties — were up next.

Those aren't exactly minor names to face right away in your first big-league game, but Britton said he wasn't thinking about the star power.

"To be honest at that point, it was just — they were just up there," Britton said of his thought process. "It's, 'Oh, it's Robinson Cano. Rather than, 'Oh, it's Robinson Cano.' But it was unbelievable.

"I was nervous down in the bullpen a little bit. Got a little butterflies. Once I got out there, I just tried to breathe. Everyone says that, to breathe. Once I started doing that I calmed down a little bit. I started getting back in the zone."

Cruz stole third base during Suzuki's at-bat, but Britton got him to pop up to short on a 1-1 fastball. That brought back some normalcy.

"It felt awesome," Britton said of his first major-league out. "I calmed down a lot after that one. Pop up caught it and we had one out, I definitely relaxed a little bit more after that."

Britton fell behind Cano 3-1 and got a little lucky on Cano's sacrifice fly to center: Cano put a good sharp swing on the ball, but Jacoby Ellsbury didn't have to move too much to catch the liner. Cano swung and missed with a check swing on a gutsy 2-0 slider, the only breaking ball Britton threw.

On Britton's first pitch to Lyle Overbay, Gardner broke for second and Saltamacchia pegged him with the help of a strong sliding tag from shortstop Stephen Drew.

Three outs, with Britton's mother and father in the stands.

"He did a very good job," Sox manager John Farrell said. "That wasn’t the ideal situation to make your debut in or how you draw it up. In that left-handed spot, he threw strikes. He's got a quick arm. He kept the emotion in that first setting and first experience well under control."